Aya
by Gerald Tarrant
Summary: Fujimiya Aya's thoughts on Weiss and his chosen career.


Fujimiya Aya and Weiß.  
_Weiß Kreuz and all characters are property of Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiß._

* * *

**Aya**

He threw his coat on the back of the chair, crossed carefully over to the faucet to wash his muddy hands. The leak in the greenhouse roof needed to be looked at. So did the dripping faucet.  
Footsteps in the next room. "Aya-san?"  
He didn't turn his head, just kept on washing his hands, digging the dirt out from under the nails.  
"Aya, did you repot the palm tree in the back?"  
He grunted, turned off the water and dried his hands on the stained towel, threw it back on the counter where it curled up on itself, cat-fetus-like, pink from the womb. The faucet dripped into the sink.  
_The thick dripping of blood on the sidewalk from the sharp edge of the blade and sightless eyes._  
"I'm going home. Fix the faucet."  
He didn't wait to hear the other's reply as he grabbed his coat from the chair and stepped outside into the darknening evening, the door of the flower shop swinging behind him.  
The air smelled like flowers and sewers and cigarettes all in one, slightly cool from afternoon showers. It had been raining all day, on and off, ever since he woke up this morning, lying in bed staring out the window at the grayness of the sky and the languor that seemed to come with every rainy day, hanging in the air, almost palpable, shifting like mist.  
He turned corners, brushing past people and traffic, staring off into the distance, mind empty. What was there to think about? There was nothing to think about. Omi's homework. Ken's flowers. Youji's girls. Aya's...  
The apartment was silent, dark, as always. He went to his room, took off his coat and sat down on the edge of the bed, staring out the window. The faint smell of cigarettes lingered in his nostrils at the edge of his perception, fading when he focused. Youji had been in here again.  
He idly wondered why that thought didn't bother him, looking out the window again. Nothing to think about. Wondered why the smell of smoke lingered and the smell of blood didn't.  
Next door the key rattled in the lock. He'd forgotten to close his door and the sound bounced in and out of his room like sharp glass.  
"Aya? Omi said you came home early. Anything wrong?"  
He didn't answer.  
"Aya?"  
_Abyssinian, get out! Get out of there now!  
Pulling the sword out of clinging flesh with a sick sticky hollow sound and watching the dark blood pool along the edge._  
He heard the noise of someone walking cautiously into his room. "Are you there?"  
"Mission tonight," he said. "You remember, right?"  
Ken Hidaka frowned at him, long bangs falling into his young face, eyes wide even with the frown. "Yeah. What's up? Persia-sama change his mind?"  
"No."  
He got up, took a step forward, and stopped. "Where's Youji?"  
"Who knows? He said he'd be back at four. Probably ran into some girl." Ken laughed, a clear ringing sound like a silver bell into the night.  
He moved to the desk, began sorting through the piles in the drawer, aimlessly.  
"What are you looking for?"  
"Nothing."  
Ken sighed, and he could hear him moving restlessly around the room, leaning against the whitewashed walls and then pushing himself off of them to pace again, swiftly, like a cat.  
_Do you think you can back up Siberian? He's down on the fifth floor. I got my hands full up here. Don't let them get away. Kill them if you have to._  
"Omi should be closing up the shop right now. I left him sweeping up some dirt in the corner. After he gets back we'll have dinner. You haven't had dinner yet, have you?"  
A silent shake of his head, the red bangs trailing down where his head bent over the desk drawer. So much junk. He should throw it away. Burn it. Do something.  
"I don't think I want to go."  
"Huh? Go where?"  
"Dinner."  
Ken sighed again. "Aya, you never eat. You're going to waste away and die."  
He shrugged, dumped all the papers back into the drawer and closed it softly.  
_He remembered the way the katana blade glittered in the neon lights as he raised it in the darkness of the alleyway and the wide open mouth in front of him pleading him to stop, to stop, and the blood spattering out onto the pavement wet with slick acid rain._  
"I'm not hungry."  
Behind them footsteps rang in the stairwell. "Guys? I'm home."

  
He heard Youji's voice in the stairwell but didn't move, staring across the room at Aya's unmoving form still bend over the desk. That boy was a puzzle all right. One hell of a puzzle that he still couldn't figure out.  
"Umm...hello?"  
"Youji-kun, I'm here." He pushed himself off from the wall and jogged to the door. The long-haired boy lounged in the doorframe, peering in.  
"Where's Aya?"  
"In there." He pointed. "Being moody."  
_What are you thinking about, Aya? Why don't you talk to me? What do you see?  
Is it the ghosts, the missed chances, the blood, the dead eyes staring into yours in your darkest nightmares? I see them too..._  
"As usual." Youji removed his sunglasses, peering down at him. "We need to leave soon."  
"As soon as Omi gets home," he said, moving past the tall boy to his own room, unzipping his sports bag and removing the sweaty clothes from their tight wad inside the synthetic fabric.  
"Been out, I see."  
"I was playing soccer with the kids. You know."  
"Yeah." Youji laughed. "You don't change, Ken-kun."  
He didn't laugh back, staring at nothing, his eyes focused on nothing, in his mind still seeing Aya hunched over the desk like a man with nothing to live for. Waiting for the night to come.  
"Do you think it's right, Youji-kun?"  
"Eh?" The other peered at him. "Nani?"  
"I play with those kids…like I'm their brother….they look up to me as their brother. You've seen it. I see it. Do you think it's right…"  
_Would you know about that, Aya?_  
"If they see what I do at night…when no one's looking…"  
Youji sighed. "You do what you have to, Ken. I don't have much advice to offer ya but that." He glanced at him through long blond locks. "I've been living with it, with myself, for a while now. I'm not going to tell you it's easy, but…do you regret it? What you do?"  
"I was just wondering…"  
_Wondering what would happen if one day they came, they came like they did everyday, came wanting to play ball…and their niichan wasn't there…  
Would you tell them, Aya? Would you tell them that niichan wasn't there and wouldn't ever be coming back?  
Could you tell them that?_

  
He moved out of the doorframe. "I'm going to my room. Call me when Omi gets home."  
"Hai."  
Ken's slim figure disappeared back into his room, carefree once more, moving with long, easy grace. He entered his own room, sat down in front of the desk, thought.  
It wasn't very grand, the mission tonight. Get in, take what they needed, get out. Hopefully they could make it this once without killing anyone.  
_Damn, I always say that. Never happens, does it?_  
It was almost always Aya, those lavender eyes, so emotionless and then flashing with a sudden violent anger. Raising his katana as they shouted at him to stop, to leave, to escape while they still could. And their cries falling on deaf ears, the sword slicing through skin and flesh and bone and the blood flowing out around onto the hard floor like scarlet rain. And then he'd stumble, looking so lost and they'd have to remind him to run. As if the simply physical act of killing had drained him of any other will or thought or memory.  
He shoved the disk with Omi's copied files into his drive, scrolling down through the data without any real thought. Old data, that he'd read before. The words blurred before his eyes, blending with the glowing screen like flashing stars in a transparent sky.  
What the hell was with that kid, anyway?  
His stomach growled and he popped the disk out of the computer, shut it down. Flung himself on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Omi had better get home quick, because he was hungry. Hadn't eaten all day.  
_If they see what I do at night…when no one's looking…_  
He'd given up long ago thinking about that. It confused him, the two lives he led, that they all led, and confusion meant that it was too complicated for him to worry about.  
It had started to rain again, the droplets pelting at his window like soft knocking. He didn't turn on the light, just lay there and watched the rain against the darkening windowpane, heard Ken moving about across the hall and listened as the silence from Aya's room stretched into the long rainy evening. He used to like the rain, used to like lying there in the gray stillness and listening to it on the roof.  
Of course, that was before.  
The clock ticked by his bedside. He glanced at the glowing numbers. Almost six o' clock. He heard someone running the water. He needed to get up, wash his face, start getting ready.  
_It doesn't end, does it? Goes on and on and on…._  
He grunted and sat up. Guess the rain made everyone pensive and thoughtful. One of those moods…those Aya moods. He imagined the lavender eyes in the darkness of the room, looking at him with that lack of emotion that he was getting so used to now. At least he hoped he was. Like a cat's eyes, regarding everything with the utmost disdain and yet the utmost disinterest.  
_Abyssinian…  
The abyss…_  
A door slammed. "Oi! I'm home!"

  
"Took ya long enough."  
Youji's face peered at him from around the door. "Damn, you're wet."  
He shrugged. Droplets of water showered around him onto the floor. He could feel his backpack sagging on his shoulders and his feet were swimming inside his shoes.  
"It's raining, Youji-kun."  
"Omi!" Ken's form appeared. "Hurry. We've been waiting for you."  
"Hai!" He grinned, entered his own room and flung off the wet clothes, flinging on dry ones just as quickly and depositing the soaking backpack in a corner. His notes were probably drenched. He'd just have to deal with that later.  
"I'm ready. Where's Aya-kun?"  
Youji scratched his head. "Apparently not here."  
He looked towards the closed door to that room, just a piece of wood, but shut with a finality like the sacred gate to a temple court. Aya…  
Oh, that was right. He'd been acting strangely at the shop when he left, but he'd let him go his own way, figuring there wasn't much more a distracted and moody Aya could do around to help. Not when Ken had spilled a pot of dirt all over the floor. Again.  
He really shouldn't be going on the mission tonight. They didn't need him. They could do as well with only three people, even two, and there was his homework and the three tests he had tomorrow, and the report due next week. But he was going, and he knew that even if the end of the world was tomorrow he'd still go. Because…  
_Do I even really know?_  
What did Aya think behind that unreadable expression and flat voice?  
_I don't even know…even know if he likes me. He probably doesn't think I'm worth his while, high school kid talking about tests and papers when he's got other things on his mind._  
Ken, coming out of the bathroom. "Dammit, we need to leave. Someone break into Aya's room and snap him out of it."  
_I'm going home. Fix the faucet._  
He wrinkled his noise, shuffling around the door a bit, watching as Youji sighed and opened Aya's door softly, closing it behind him.  
_What does he think? About Weiß? About us? About me?_  
The door opened again, and Youji reappeared with Aya behind him. The red-haired boy's eyes moved, came to rest on him, then moved away, nonchalant, aloof.  
_If I could remember...if I could remember...maybe he'd change. Maybe he'd like me then. Always that hope, that in that past life I was someone else, someone better._  
"Aya-kun? Are you feeling all right?"  
A startled glance, quickly covered. "I'm fine." Voice flat.  
He sighed.  
Ken, coming out of his room and tucking his keys into his pocket. "Ok. Let's go."

  
They moved out of the blue-blackness of the stairwell into the silver-blue-blackness of the raining night, streetlamps shining on the pavement with the glow of neon moons, thousands of them appearing in the sky all at once. Giant neon moons.  
_And the voice was silent and he was standing there in the faint neon glow with his sword out, breathing heavily, hearing only the whistle of the wind in his ears and knowing that it would be like all the others._  
"We shoulda taken a cab."  
"Oh come on, Youji-kun. Walking is good for you."  
"It's _wet_."  
_Wet like the blood that slicked his fingers and the pavement now as he stared down at the body with his sword in his hand not knowing what to do and the blind eyes staring up at the sky._  
_Abyssinian! Where are you?_  
"Don't fight, guys. Look, I found us a nice noodle shop. What do you say? Fast, cheap..."  
"Cheap is good, Ken-san."  
"Omi-"  
"I'm a high school student, Youji-kun. Cheap is good."  
_What does it take to forget? What does it take?  
I want to forget._  
"Aya? What do you say?"  
He looked up, meeting the brown eyes. "Fine. Whatever."  
_Trying not to feel the wetness of the pavement beneath his shoes or the soft tinkle of the bell as the door opened like the tinkle of coins on metal, the tinkle of glass against glass shattering, the tinkle of the cross and chain around the neck of a dead man, tinkling in the wind._


End file.
